My Amsterdam Trip, Part 2

18Aug

Lets throw chronological order out of the window here by revealing a World Exclusive(!!!!!) for fans of a certain show with four judges on it, that has been imported to a ton of countries to highlight bland pop singers. Liz from Easyjet was on our flight home, it was her last ever flight because she’s going to be famous. Look out for ‘Airport Liz’ coming to a screen near you soon and remember where you heard the name first.

Right back to the ‘dam, having been woken up by a cacophony of morning noises, the highlights being; spoons thrown into buckets, that mosquito (again), people arguing loudly (usually about 6 in the morning), rubbish being hurled from a great height into metal bins and the least musical array of church bells you’ve ever heard, which incidentally used to go off at 8:20 and 8:50 each day for some bizarre reason. The first order of the day was a shave, for some reason the air in Amsterdam makes my facial hair grow, then we would set out into the unknown, which already seemed familiar as we had criss crossed it countless times on day one.

on our first day (no rules chronology here) we thought we’d all cram into a nice quiet café and have a meal, the woman serving didn’t seem to pleased to see us but we didn’t think anything of it, having ordered a drink we got a menu then realised with names like the Full Monty, Queen and Princess burgers, we had stumbled into a gay place. happily we got free mints after paying the bill and the meal filled a hole, so it was probably the best gay bar experience we could have hoped for.

Having said that there were some great places to eat and drink, the Outback bar have staff willing to explain to you the parameters of Aussie Rules football, Hill Street Blues is a great graffiti haven right next to the police station and many others, each one being distinct from the next except for the prices, ‘Its a fiver every time you sit down’ was one of the more witty observation of the day.

The weather was lovely, we all turned red when we went to the beach, yup that’s right a beach in Amsterdam, lovely it was as well, we all turned bright red and because we are who we are, we even went to a different beach first which had scary dogs on it and a stretch of sand that looked a couple of hundred metres long but went for a mile, no depth perception in the desert, we were lucky to get out alive and find the official one which actually had people and frisbees.

All in all after a top time away, my highlights were probably, the man on a mobility scooter pulling tricks and going round on two wheels, the lax airport security at Amsterdam which let us onto the plane without having our bags checked and then surviving the runaway train effect as we landed in Manchester, and also finding the worst restaurant in the world. I didn’t see a name on it but it took fifty five minutes to bring out a hot dog and a plate of chips and a bagel never arrived. Only in Amsterdam, it seems, could you get such good and bad melded together, I would describe it as a chilled out Gotham City.

Glad you all made it home alive, was worried there for a minute :) It’s still one of my favorite towns to visit – could just sit in a cafe for hours and people watch (which is one of my favorite activities in any city, now that I think about it….)